http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=sport&subclass=local&c...
[quote]
AFL Canberra unveils plans to tackle Victoria
SWalsh
Monday, 4 July 2005
AFL Canberra has launched a bold bid for a one-off interstate match against the Victorian Football League in the ACT next year as the centrepiece of a revamped representative calender.
League leaders are confident the VFL will accept an offer to play the ACT despite the territory suffering its fourth successive loss to an AFL Queensland representative team at the Gabba on Saturday night.
The match is planned as a stand-alone game at Manuka Oval. It is part of a restructure to give AFL Canberra's elite players two representative games a season.
The overhaul is based on a three-year cycle, with an alternating home-or-away game against the VFL every third year as the main attraction. The ACT's bid is built on filling a representative gap for the VFL, which plays a tri-series against SA and WA that gives them a bye every three years.
The ACT would play one-off games against the Sydney AFL the following two years. An existing annual clash with AFL Queensland would remain a permanent fixture. The league also planned to retain a team for Australian Country Championships, which it won for the first time in WA last year. However, the team would instead be designed for under-21 players to showcase the league's young talent, rather than a senior squad, at the carnival, held every two years.
The VFL is a Melbourne-based competition a tier below the AFL. It includes teams such as Port Melbourne and Box Hill, which are essentially reserve-grade clubs for AFL teams. AFL Canberra general manager Anthony Dignan said the VFL plan aimed to offer ACT footballers a chance to represent the territory against the best possible opposition.
"Representative football is a great promotion for the league and we play Queensland as part of that, but we need to look higher," Dignan said.
"I think it's everyone's dream to play against the Big V and hopefully it will keep and attract players here knowing that every three years we play the VFL. They don't have to go elsewhere to play a state game of that standard."
But AFL Queensland, which handed the ACT a 38-point loss at the Gabba on Saturday, again looms as a stumbling block.
Queensland league bosses have also showed interest in a match against the VFL in its "off" season, despite holding a similar deal with the Western Australian Football League. The ACT hopes to promote the match on its own merit rather than as a curtain-raiser to a Kangaroos AFL match. [/quote]

Yeah it's a joke, I live in the ACT at the moment and they will be lucky to get 500people to watch it. We should of beaten QLD but we had our CHF, FF and CHB out so we found it difficult, even so we will get pumped by 10 goals. The standard isn't as bad as some people might think though.

Catters, ACT has not beaten an AFLQ side for four years and with the number of ex AFL/ VFL players now playing in that competition, they most likely never will. Go to the AFLQ website and have a look at the depth of the competition. Perhaps ACT should consider entering a side in the VFL, as Tasmania has.

We were poised to do so (enter a team in the VFL) The Canberra Kangaroos, North Melbourne Reserves team with ACTAFL top up players. I would have loved to see this get off the ground but it didn't, I would rather see the ACT have a side in the VFL than Tasmania because it would actually help the ACT to become a better footballing area, unlike what it has done down in Tasmania, because it has ruined the local football down there and it has so much more potential than the ACTAFL

Canberra Times:
VFL puts blame on Games for ACT miss
October 7, 2005
The ACT's elite Australian footballers have lost their chance to play a representative Victorian Football League team in Canberra next year.
AFL Canberra learned yesterday that the VFL had turned down a bid to play a representative match in the national capital next season.
The match was earmarked as the centrepiece of the ACT's three-year representative calendar but is now unlikely to come earlier than 2009.
VFL bosses, who labelled the ACT's offer ''enticing'', blamed the breakdown on Melbourne's Commonwealth Games. The event has caused a venue logjam that forced the league to delay the opening round of its 2006 season.
AFL Canberra general manager Anthony Dignan said the knockback was a blow for AFL Canberra, which had eyed a representative promotion after winning last year's Australian Country Championships carnival in WA.
''It's disappointing but I can fully understand their position,'' Dignan said.
''It's now just a matter of going back to the drawing board and seeing what we can come up with, although most competitions would have probably already worked out their plan for next year.'' AFL Canberra already has a packed 2006 representative schedule.
It will feature an annual one-off match against Queensland at Manuka Oval as well as a defence of its country championship crown, on the Gold Coast.
The league had considered sending an under-23 team to country championships to ease the load on its senior players.
ACT coach Brett Knowles said the VFL backdown could emerge as a blessing for the territory.
''It would have been great to play the VFL but I think three different rep games would have been too many,'' Knowles said.
''It's very important for us to go back to country championships with a good side and defend it well.
''It's also a pretty huge thing to beat Queensland because if we lose that it's hard to think of ourselves as being similar to them.'' AFL Sydney has also shown an interest in playing a representative game against the ACT, which Dignan said the league would consider.
''We just have to keep putting ourselves up there in the marketplace,'' he said.
News of AFL Canberra's lost opportunity came yesterday as adopted home club the Kangaroos agreed to an affiliation with VFL clubs North Ballarat and Tasmania.

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